Pizza for Peace

It’s 100 years since the birth of Helder Câmara who became one of Brazil’s most remarkable bishops. Just over five feet tall and weighing no more than 120 pounds, his diminutive figure embodied the church’s option for the poor. He was often known as ‘the red bishop’. Câmara famously said: “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.”

Born in Fortaleza in North Eastern Brazil on February 7, 1909, Câmara told his father in his early teens that he wanted to be ordained. “Do you know what it means to be a priest?” came the reply. "It means to belong to yourself no more. A priest belongs to God and to others.” To this young Câmara answered, “But that is exactly what I want to be!”

Ordained in 1931, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and became an assistant bishop there in 1952. He became the "bishop of the favelas," intensifying the church's work in the burgeoning shantytowns and lobbying the government for development programmess to assist the masses. In 1964 he was appointed Archbishop of Olinda and Recife. Câmara rejected a bishop’s traditional trappings, moved out of the episcopal palace and persuaded fellow prelates at the Second Vatican Council to dispense with jewelled rings.

Vigorous advocate for the poor and defender of human rights that he was, he came to the conclusion that charity was not enough. What was needed was social justice. This in turn required empowering the poor to be the agents of social change. He would say: “Hope is to believe in the adventure of love, to bet on fellow human beings,to leap into the dark trusting in God.” He died 10 years ago, aged 90.

Pizza for Peace is a church-led community event to celebrate the life of Dom Helder Câmara and introduce him to young people in Cidade de Deus who have never heard of him. As well as a selection of delicious pizzas to eat, everyone who comes will be given a chance to write a recipe for a Pizza for Peace with their ingredients for peace and justice in the City of God, with prizes for the winners.